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lisamchuk's review against another edition
5.0
Brilliant! Full of bookish reference and slanders against the ignorant masses, their book choices, and the big box stores. Canadian, and highly enjoyable.
act_10's review against another edition
5.0
This book made me laugh out loud so many times by making me remember my days as a bookstore employee. However, when I read parts out loud to a family member or friend that has not ever worked in a bookstore, I got blank stares and fake chuckles.
As wonderfully amazing as this book is, it is of this writer's opinion that it is not for those who have never worked in a bookstore. Some of the common yet ridiculous questions asked, or books requested would be lost on those who have never worked in a bookstore (or possibly a library)
Another thing that may help would be a wide knowledge of classic and modern fiction. I found myself googling or wikipediaing classic novel character names so that I knew what was being referenced.
In summary, a wonderful novel for those with bookstore experience, but not for everyone.
As wonderfully amazing as this book is, it is of this writer's opinion that it is not for those who have never worked in a bookstore. Some of the common yet ridiculous questions asked, or books requested would be lost on those who have never worked in a bookstore (or possibly a library)
Another thing that may help would be a wide knowledge of classic and modern fiction. I found myself googling or wikipediaing classic novel character names so that I knew what was being referenced.
In summary, a wonderful novel for those with bookstore experience, but not for everyone.
alaynachristina's review against another edition
5.0
Shelf Monkey is a book lovers book, an ode to the bookworm. I liked this book alot when I first read it in 2010, now after rereading it again in 2018 i love it. It reminded me why i love a good book and that being called a bookworm is a compliment. If youve ever had someone say to you 'its just a book' and been totally dumbfounded by those words, this is the book for you.
typicalbooks's review against another edition
4.0
The format of this book was trying at first, and I tended to skip a few of the initial 'news items'. The email and storytelling nature of the style was fascinating and wove seamlessly through correspondence to prose.
All in all, I adored this book. Peppered with all sorts of book-geek goodies, all readers will find bits and pieces that speak to them on a deep, secret level that only lovers of the written word could appreciate.
I should look through for reactions from pulp and casual readers and see if this is only for shelf monkeys~
All in all, I adored this book. Peppered with all sorts of book-geek goodies, all readers will find bits and pieces that speak to them on a deep, secret level that only lovers of the written word could appreciate.
I should look through for reactions from pulp and casual readers and see if this is only for shelf monkeys~
kathleenish's review against another edition
2.0
Someone called Shelf Monkey a Fight Club for bookworms, which isn't too far off. A fast read, the book is structured as a series of emails from the protagonist, Thomas, who is on the lam. The emails are interspersed with newspaper articles and transcripts of segments from a daytime talk show. Perhaps because of this structure, the characterization is quite explicit. I'm more of a implicit characterization fan.
Targets of Redekop's satire include giant chain bookstores, genre fiction or mass market literature, psychiatric medication, bibliophiles, and the intellectual posturing of bibliophiles.
For fans of Winnipeg, Shelf Monkey is set in there, and Mondragon makes a brief cameo, if a cafe/bookstore can be said to make a cameo.
Targets of Redekop's satire include giant chain bookstores, genre fiction or mass market literature, psychiatric medication, bibliophiles, and the intellectual posturing of bibliophiles.
For fans of Winnipeg, Shelf Monkey is set in there, and Mondragon makes a brief cameo, if a cafe/bookstore can be said to make a cameo.
kellyholmes's review against another edition
3.0
Witty at every turn. I liked all the book and author references, although I wasn't familiar with a lot of them. (And I thought *I* was a bookworm!) I didn't really believe the main characters' actions at the climax, but it was still an enjoyable enough read.
chelseyclark's review
2.0
I think 2016 was the year of reading books that I found difficult to rate. This one might be the hardest.
I kind of hated the first half of this book. Like, really hated it. Around page 50, I was this close to DNFing this mofo. But I was so close to my year end reading goals, and it wasn't a super long book, so I pushed on through, with mixed results.
Thomas is such a turd, for starters. I am not saying he is an unlikable character, because unlikable characters don't generally turn me off on their own. He is just kind of... there. I am not sure what made him so boring for me, as the author made efforts to give this guy some dimension - he's got a slew of mental health issues, his life has been disrupted by his abandoning a difficult career path that he has been pushing through for years (and hey, who seriously quits halfway through articling, after getting an undergrad degree and then slogging through law school - seven or eight years of school, with law school being very time consuming and demanding and difficult - and you give up halfway through articling? I know a fair few people who have gone through this process and it seems bizarre to me), he's got this love interest, his relationship with whom is in constant flux and confusion... I get that Thomas is supposed to be a bit boring, that antihero who is not supposed to excite us. He points out, if I recall correctly, that he is like Nick Carraway and Aubrey is like Jay Gatsby, and guess what? I didn't like the Great Gatsby either, and I also thought Nick was a dweeb and boring as hell.
Thomas' love interest, Danae, is such a disappointment. Ah, she walks in, all curves and dark hair and mystery, and Thomas has an instaboner for her. But that's all she is. Danae proves over and over again that she serves no purpose but to be a sexual object - indeed her main role in the climax is to be a seductress - and for some reason Thomas is somehow mystified and confused by her, even though she has no personality and is the token sex appeal. I was utterly bored by their dynamic, and disappointed in Corey Redekop for his inability to write interesting women. Other women are only seen briefly, with the next significant woman being Paige, the manager of the book store, who falls into the cliche of the bitchy woman boss that nobody likes because she is the bitchy boss. WHERE ARE THE INTERESTING WOMEN?
Where are the interesting characters at all? Aubrey is supposed to be this novel's Gatsby, he is this novel's Tyler Durden, and yet he is a grey slate. In fact, the only character whom I found interesting was probably Munroe Purvis, for once his mask is revealed, he is a much more complex and interesting character than any of the others.
I mentioned Tyler Durden. Let's talk about this book burning club. This is Fight Club for intellectuals (and Canadians, apparently - I did enjoy the repeated reminder that this takes place in Winnepeg, Manitoba, arguably the ONLY place in Canada more forgettable than us tiny provinces over in the maritimes, and possibly one of the least remarkable places in the world - this added something to the atmosphere of the novel), where instead of angry young men starting a revolution by fighting each other, the angry young nerds (who weren't invited to join Fight Club because they were too busy reading) get to argue and vent about everything wrong with the world via literature, and burn books as a way to find some sort of resolution. In theory, I love this idea. Not the burning books, which I am generally against, but this literary Fight Club.
But, as I said, I don't find the characters of this book at all compelling, and Aubrey (literary Tyler) is no exception, and therefore his club is not compelling. Thomas, as this Fight Club's Jack the Narrator, is feeble in his distress and half hearted "hey guys? Guys? This is going to far, eh?" Danae as this novel's Marla is flat and cliche.
But let's get to the climax of the book. Spoilers ahead.
So they kidnap Munroe. They have a bizarre ritual where Thomas acts as his attorney, and then they torture the shit out of him. Everything from Munroe's kidnap forward, I was finally engaging with (except for Thomas, nothing was helping that guy in my eyes) this book, and I absolutely couldn't put it down! What? Where did this sudden entertainment come from?! Even as I was reading, thinking to myself how much I did not care for Thomas or how disappointing and uninteresting Danae was, I was still eager to keep going and see what was going to happen!
I love that Thomas was caught in a bookstore, using books as his body armor. Amazing and hilarious. Finally, some of the dark humour of the book struck a cord with me.
And when I finished, I was satisfied with the ending, somehow. That surprised me.
Last bone to pick: I hated that this book was epistolary. I did not think it worked for this narrative. I hated that Thomas told his stories in emails. I would have much preferred a normal narrative, with the author still including newspaper clippings and other supplementary documents in addition to the narrative. And I'm a fan of epistolary novels, so don't think I just don't like that format.
So, you know, I am really confused about how I feel about this book. I really liked certain parts of it, but it took me like 200 pages of hating just about everything to finally get to the good bit.
2 to 2.5 stars, but as this is goodreads, I will settle on 2. "It was okay."
I kind of hated the first half of this book. Like, really hated it. Around page 50, I was this close to DNFing this mofo. But I was so close to my year end reading goals, and it wasn't a super long book, so I pushed on through, with mixed results.
Thomas is such a turd, for starters. I am not saying he is an unlikable character, because unlikable characters don't generally turn me off on their own. He is just kind of... there. I am not sure what made him so boring for me, as the author made efforts to give this guy some dimension - he's got a slew of mental health issues, his life has been disrupted by his abandoning a difficult career path that he has been pushing through for years (and hey, who seriously quits halfway through articling, after getting an undergrad degree and then slogging through law school - seven or eight years of school, with law school being very time consuming and demanding and difficult - and you give up halfway through articling? I know a fair few people who have gone through this process and it seems bizarre to me), he's got this love interest, his relationship with whom is in constant flux and confusion... I get that Thomas is supposed to be a bit boring, that antihero who is not supposed to excite us. He points out, if I recall correctly, that he is like Nick Carraway and Aubrey is like Jay Gatsby, and guess what? I didn't like the Great Gatsby either, and I also thought Nick was a dweeb and boring as hell.
Thomas' love interest, Danae, is such a disappointment. Ah, she walks in, all curves and dark hair and mystery, and Thomas has an instaboner for her. But that's all she is. Danae proves over and over again that she serves no purpose but to be a sexual object - indeed her main role in the climax is to be a seductress - and for some reason Thomas is somehow mystified and confused by her, even though she has no personality and is the token sex appeal. I was utterly bored by their dynamic, and disappointed in Corey Redekop for his inability to write interesting women. Other women are only seen briefly, with the next significant woman being Paige, the manager of the book store, who falls into the cliche of the bitchy woman boss that nobody likes because she is the bitchy boss. WHERE ARE THE INTERESTING WOMEN?
Where are the interesting characters at all? Aubrey is supposed to be this novel's Gatsby, he is this novel's Tyler Durden, and yet he is a grey slate. In fact, the only character whom I found interesting was probably Munroe Purvis, for once his mask is revealed, he is a much more complex and interesting character than any of the others.
I mentioned Tyler Durden. Let's talk about this book burning club. This is Fight Club for intellectuals (and Canadians, apparently - I did enjoy the repeated reminder that this takes place in Winnepeg, Manitoba, arguably the ONLY place in Canada more forgettable than us tiny provinces over in the maritimes, and possibly one of the least remarkable places in the world - this added something to the atmosphere of the novel), where instead of angry young men starting a revolution by fighting each other, the angry young nerds (who weren't invited to join Fight Club because they were too busy reading) get to argue and vent about everything wrong with the world via literature, and burn books as a way to find some sort of resolution. In theory, I love this idea. Not the burning books, which I am generally against, but this literary Fight Club.
But, as I said, I don't find the characters of this book at all compelling, and Aubrey (literary Tyler) is no exception, and therefore his club is not compelling. Thomas, as this Fight Club's Jack the Narrator, is feeble in his distress and half hearted "hey guys? Guys? This is going to far, eh?" Danae as this novel's Marla is flat and cliche.
But let's get to the climax of the book. Spoilers ahead.
So they kidnap Munroe. They have a bizarre ritual where Thomas acts as his attorney, and then they torture the shit out of him. Everything from Munroe's kidnap forward, I was finally engaging with (except for Thomas, nothing was helping that guy in my eyes) this book, and I absolutely couldn't put it down! What? Where did this sudden entertainment come from?! Even as I was reading, thinking to myself how much I did not care for Thomas or how disappointing and uninteresting Danae was, I was still eager to keep going and see what was going to happen!
I love that Thomas was caught in a bookstore, using books as his body armor. Amazing and hilarious. Finally, some of the dark humour of the book struck a cord with me.
And when I finished, I was satisfied with the ending, somehow. That surprised me.
Last bone to pick: I hated that this book was epistolary. I did not think it worked for this narrative. I hated that Thomas told his stories in emails. I would have much preferred a normal narrative, with the author still including newspaper clippings and other supplementary documents in addition to the narrative. And I'm a fan of epistolary novels, so don't think I just don't like that format.
So, you know, I am really confused about how I feel about this book. I really liked certain parts of it, but it took me like 200 pages of hating just about everything to finally get to the good bit.
2 to 2.5 stars, but as this is goodreads, I will settle on 2. "It was okay."
albatrossonhalfpointe's review
3.0
Thomas Friesen has three goals in life. Get a job. Make friends. Find a good book to curl up with. After landing a job at READ, the newest hypermegabookstore, he feels he may have accomplished all three.
All is not peaceable within the stacks, however. Dis content is steadily rising, and it is aimed squarely at Munroe Purvis, a talk show host whose wildly popular book club is progressively lowering the IQ of North America.
But the bookworms have a plan. Plots are being hatched. The destruction of Munroe is all but assured. And as Thomas finds himself swept along in the maelstrom of insanity, he wonders if reading a book is all it's cracked up to be.
Definitely a zippier read than the last one, although I have to admit, not what I was expecting. I was kind of expecting some fairly light-hearted satire about working in a bookstore, maybe something almost along the lines of Microserfs or JPod (assuming the latter - which I have not yet read - is anything like the TV show - of which a few episodes I have seen) filled with hilarious situations that, as a fellow bookseller, I could totally relate to and laugh along with. The "destruction of Munroe" would, I figured be some sort of hilarious prank that would humiliate and utterly discredit him, but be ultimately harmless. But that is not what this book is.
For starters, aside from describing Thomas's first few days at the bookstore, while he acclimatizes to what it's like to work there, the book doesn't really deal with working there at all. It's much more about the relationships between the people, and their relationships with books. It especially focuses on the Shelf Monkey meetings, where a group of disaffected bookstore employees, tired of having the sell utter crap to customers at the expense of good stuff, gather together to burn copies of some of the offending crap.
Then there's Munroe Purvis. When I sarted reading, I assumed he was supposed to represent Oprah and her omnipresent book club, and booksellers' mild to severe aggravation about that. However, as even the book points out, while it's irritating that people won't read something amazing like A Fine Balance, for example unless Oprah tells them to, and then you better believe they're all over it, the fact remains that she does pick such things. If you look back at Oprah's picks, there is some pretty fantastic stuff in there. There's the occasional tripe, too, but yeah. She picks some decent stuff. Munroe Purvis, on the other hand, is basically blatantly opposed to anything worthwhile. His picks are exclusively overwrought, heartwrenching, steaming piles of crap. Redekop must have had a blast writing a few excerpts from one of these books, because it is the most painfully, nauseatingly saccharine bit of tripe I've ever had the dubious pleasure of reading (Oh who am I kidding. I loved reading it. Actually laughed out loud about it. But would definitely hurl a book across the room if I ever had to read more than one page of such inanity.). So he was a great maddeningly omnipotent presence, and all the customers his mindless zombies, ready to chew up the latest dreadful offering from him, and while we real-life booksellers may not have it quite that bad, we can definitely still relate to everything that goes on as a result of this man and his atrocious books.
Except the final thing. As I said before, I fully expected some sort of prank that would be funny. But what the Shelf Monkeys ultimately ended up doing was pretty intense and horrifying. And while I understand their frustration, yeah. It really changed some of the characters in my view, and makes them much less likable, because no one deserves what they did, really. I can sort of get behind the ones who, like Thomas, got swept up in it, but as soon as it was over, went "Oh my god, what did we do?", but a few of them seemed to still believe, even after the mania wore off, that what they did was perfectly justified, and it's kind of hard to accept that.
But there it is. And lest you think I don't think it was good, I did. It was a good book. Quick read, quite compelling, and for sure relatable, at least in some places, if you've ever worked with books. Just be warned that it's not as light-hearted as you might think.
All is not peaceable within the stacks, however. Dis content is steadily rising, and it is aimed squarely at Munroe Purvis, a talk show host whose wildly popular book club is progressively lowering the IQ of North America.
But the bookworms have a plan. Plots are being hatched. The destruction of Munroe is all but assured. And as Thomas finds himself swept along in the maelstrom of insanity, he wonders if reading a book is all it's cracked up to be.
Definitely a zippier read than the last one, although I have to admit, not what I was expecting. I was kind of expecting some fairly light-hearted satire about working in a bookstore, maybe something almost along the lines of Microserfs or JPod (assuming the latter - which I have not yet read - is anything like the TV show - of which a few episodes I have seen) filled with hilarious situations that, as a fellow bookseller, I could totally relate to and laugh along with. The "destruction of Munroe" would, I figured be some sort of hilarious prank that would humiliate and utterly discredit him, but be ultimately harmless. But that is not what this book is.
For starters, aside from describing Thomas's first few days at the bookstore, while he acclimatizes to what it's like to work there, the book doesn't really deal with working there at all. It's much more about the relationships between the people, and their relationships with books. It especially focuses on the Shelf Monkey meetings, where a group of disaffected bookstore employees, tired of having the sell utter crap to customers at the expense of good stuff, gather together to burn copies of some of the offending crap.
Then there's Munroe Purvis. When I sarted reading, I assumed he was supposed to represent Oprah and her omnipresent book club, and booksellers' mild to severe aggravation about that. However, as even the book points out, while it's irritating that people won't read something amazing like A Fine Balance, for example unless Oprah tells them to, and then you better believe they're all over it, the fact remains that she does pick such things. If you look back at Oprah's picks, there is some pretty fantastic stuff in there. There's the occasional tripe, too, but yeah. She picks some decent stuff. Munroe Purvis, on the other hand, is basically blatantly opposed to anything worthwhile. His picks are exclusively overwrought, heartwrenching, steaming piles of crap. Redekop must have had a blast writing a few excerpts from one of these books, because it is the most painfully, nauseatingly saccharine bit of tripe I've ever had the dubious pleasure of reading (Oh who am I kidding. I loved reading it. Actually laughed out loud about it. But would definitely hurl a book across the room if I ever had to read more than one page of such inanity.). So he was a great maddeningly omnipotent presence, and all the customers his mindless zombies, ready to chew up the latest dreadful offering from him, and while we real-life booksellers may not have it quite that bad, we can definitely still relate to everything that goes on as a result of this man and his atrocious books.
Except the final thing. As I said before, I fully expected some sort of prank that would be funny. But what the Shelf Monkeys ultimately ended up doing was pretty intense and horrifying. And while I understand their frustration, yeah. It really changed some of the characters in my view, and makes them much less likable, because no one deserves what they did, really. I can sort of get behind the ones who, like Thomas, got swept up in it, but as soon as it was over, went "Oh my god, what did we do?", but a few of them seemed to still believe, even after the mania wore off, that what they did was perfectly justified, and it's kind of hard to accept that.
But there it is. And lest you think I don't think it was good, I did. It was a good book. Quick read, quite compelling, and for sure relatable, at least in some places, if you've ever worked with books. Just be warned that it's not as light-hearted as you might think.
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